COACH Paul Roos says he has been pleased with the return of former co-captain Jack Grimes, who has played the past two matches against Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs.

Grimes, who has played three matches this year, notched up 22 disposals and six rebound 50s against the Dogs, and was one of Melbourne’s important contributors in last weekend’s win.

Roos said he had been pleased with Grimes and a handful of players who had returned to the side in recent times. 

“Grimesy has struggled a little bit and I thought against Hawthorn, he was one of our few good players, and I thought he played well on the weekend,” he said on Roos’ Views.

“It was good to see Wattsy (Jack Watts) back in and really contribute and Spence (Jake Spencer), who worked his way in and played terrific footy, along with [Cam] Pedersen.

“When you’re getting performances across the board, it certainly makes it a lot easier to win and I thought it (last round) was our best team performance for the year.”

Roos said the likes of midfielder Jordie McKenzie and ruckman Max Gawn were also pushing strongly for a recall, after some strong form with Casey.

“Jordie’s been really consistent and he’s got a lot of trust and support from the player group,” he said.

“I think Jordie’s biggest challenge is just transferring that VFL form into [the] AFL. We know he can get the ball at VFL level and we know he uses the ball really well and sometimes it’s more of that mental thing.

“Gawny has been building and last weekend was by far his best game, and we need pressure on our senior team. We need our senior team playing really well, but we need our Casey team playing well, as it did last week.”

With Dom Tyson (knee), Chris Dawes (calf), Jack Viney (fibula) and Neville Jetta (concussion) in contention to return this round, Roos said it was critical that Melbourne didn’t carry any injured players into this Saturday’s clash against Port Adelaide in Alice Springs. 

“What we’ve learned from the last month is that we’ve got to play fit teams,” he said.

“We played Angus Brayshaw two or three weeks ago, when he had the flu and we probably shouldn’t have done that.

“We didn’t play Jesse Hogan [in round seven] and you saw the way he responded on the weekend, so a lot of it is making sure we pick a really fit team for this weekend and we can compete for four quarters.”

Roos said the clash against the Power was another great test for his side, and if it’s anything like last year’s inaugural clash at Traeger Park, this weekend should be another beauty. 

“We played really well up there last year, but couldn’t beat them,” Roos said.

“Despite their [3-5] record [this year], they’re still a high quality side and they were about a kick away from the Grand Final last year.

“That’s going to be another tough game, but we’ve got to come with the same mindset and competitiveness as we did last week and not worry about the opposition. It’s about us getting more consistent and we haven’t been able to do that.”

Reflecting on last round’s win over the Bulldogs, Roos said he was rapt for his team after a tough three weeks.

“It was great for the players to respond the way they did. The Doggies have been in really good form and played some good footy against Freo, which we weren’t able to do, so we knew they were going to be really tough opposition,” he said.

“We had to steel ourselves for their competitiveness – they’re (the Bulldogs) a competitive young group – and I thought the way we out tackled them, because they’re the No.1 tackling team in the comp [was good].

“So we had a couple of clear focuses going into the game and we were able to tick those things off.”